O'Neill: Don't write off the Rams

MARTIN O'Neill believes Derby County could still be a force to be reckoned with this season, because personal experience has taught him that promoted clubs can take a little while to get to grips with the top flight.

MARTIN O'Neill believes Derby County could still be a force to be reckoned with this season.

Personal experience has taught him that promoted clubs can take a little while to get to grips with the top flight.

O'Neill reckons there are many similarities between his old Leicester City team and Billy Davies' basement boys, who were jubilant after beating Albion at Wembley six months ago but have seen little go right since.

O'Neill's Leicester were promoted after beating Crystal Palace 2-1 at Wembley in May 1996, with a last-gasp extra-time goal from Steve Claridge, having finished the season in sixth place on just 71 points.

Leicester went on to finish their first season in the Premiership in ninth place, three places above Derby as it happens, who had been automatically promoted the previous year.

"The similarities are there because we came up through the play-offs, and we had no time whatsoever to prepare,'' recalls O'Neill.

"I have heard Derby say this, and it does take you 10, 12, 14 games to know what this is all about.

"You are hoping that you have some points on the board to do so.

"If and when you do get to grips with it, you feel much more at ease - and who knows?

"I don't know the ins and outs of Derby, but that is the sort of feeling we had at Leicester early on.

"As it turns out we hung on in the League Cup for a while, and by Christmas-time things were turning for us."

O'Neill's side were travelling to the Baseball Ground 11 years ago tomorrow (November 1996) having already collected four league wins and having progressed to a fourth-round League Cup clash with Manchester United which they were to win 2-0.

He recalls: "It took us a fairly lengthy time to really get used to it.

"It was always a hard struggle for us in the first year even though we ended up finishing ninth. We had always something to hang on to in the League Cup, which kept us going right through and we won that.

"But I don't think we were actually safe, it was hard fought, until maybe the second or third last game of the season Ð it was that tight."

Derby have already shipped 24 goals in 11 games (Leicester had shipped 13 in their first 11) having seen Tottenham hit them for four, Arsenal for five and Liverpool for six.

But one bad afternoon still sticks in O'Neill's mind: when Leicester - containing the likes of Izzet, Heskey, Claridge, Walsh, Lennon, Keller and former Villan Garry Parker - were humbled by Liverpool at home in September 1996 when Patrik Berger's brace and a Michael Thomas goal gave the Reds a comfortable 3-0 win.

Leeds were to hand out another 3-0 defeat in the New Year but they remained their biggest losses of the entire campaign.

"It didn't help that in our sixth game we got turned over at home by Liverpool, when Patrik Berger scored a couple of goals," O'Neill recalls.

"You felt that that was the standard. They murdered us. But that was the last time that Liverpool beat us."

O'Neill believes Derby can recover from their nightmare thrashings as they sit just three points behind 14th-placed Fulham.

"It can happen. I don't think you worry about whether it is four or five, it doesn't matter.

"It's what you can learn, what you can pick up - as long as confidence has not been eroded you can go again.

"The league is so tight there is one win separating seven teams.

"At this stage of the season usually you might see somebody adrift, but they are not.

"And this in a season where Tottenham are in the bottom three. The only thing I will guarantee is that Tottenham will not be in the bottom three at the end of the season."